Parkhead chairman to resist all bids for O'Neill

The Celtic chairman, Brian Quinn, has dismissed speculation that the club's manager, Martin O'Neill, is about to move to England.

O'Neill has been linked repeatedly with the manager's positions at Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool in recent weeks, but Quinn is determined to keep him at Parkhead.

Quinn was asked on the BBC's Sportsweek programme if he believed O'Neill would be Celtic's manager next season. He replied: "I do."

He added: "We will resist any overtures from any club,. We will move everything to retain Martin O'Neill.

"He has made great strides here, but we haven't gone as far as we would like to go yet in the Champions' League. We only narrowly missed out on getting into the second stage this year. We lost to a doubtful penalty three or four minutes from the end of the game in Lyon.

"The next thing to do is to move forward and I think that is a strong incentive for Martin O'Neill to stay here and go to where no Scottish club has been before.

"I think Hugh Gaitskell, many years ago in relation to the leadership of the Labour Party, said: 'We shall fight, fight and fight again' and that is my view with regard to Martin O'Neill at the club here. He is the core of the outfit here. He has got the players playing for one another and for him, too.

"We don't hold ourselves out to be the most skilful team in the world, but I tell you what, we fight for every game, we win every game and we never give up.

"I read a piece in the paper the other day that said if Sir Alex Ferguson has one more season of the kind he had just had, then Martin O'Neill can expect a summons to Old Trafford. I thought 'summons - a summons!' Do they think that he is working for some tinpot club?"